


Protocol 79

by MCUsic_to_my_ears



Series: Making Our Way Home [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Natasha Romanov, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Angst, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner-centric, Depression, Drugs, During Iron Man 3, Gen, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov-centric, POV Natasha Romanov, Panic, Panic Attacks, Police, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Natasha Romanov, References to Drugs, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, The Avengers Are Good Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8289751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCUsic_to_my_ears/pseuds/MCUsic_to_my_ears
Summary: Natasha is pulled from a mission, she thinks to kill monsters, but this time it turns out that she's going to be saving a life: Bruce's. Tony went to Malibu to spend some time with Pepper, only for the Mandarin to reduce his personal world to rubble. Bruce had been getting worked up all week, but ‘Tony Stark Presumed Dead’ kind of makes a guy go over the edge. Natasha had to rely on Tony's past words and her own intuition to keep her friend alive through the night.





	

“What the hell is it this time?” the spy asked, not lowering her gun, but pulling her vibrating phone out of her pocket. There was a text from Tony, reading, ‘Protocol 79: A plane is being sent to your location to take you to Stark Tower.’ It was void of any further details, so her first thought was that she was being pulled out to kill monsters again.

She quickly shot her target, not wanting to leave any strings uncut, and then set out to the nearest airstrip, not wanting to know how JARVIS knew her location. The other men in the office building across the street were crowded around the wounded businesswoman, calling 191 and trying to stop the blood flow. Forty minutes later, she was walking into an empty Quinjet, and the wheels were in the sky.

When she touched down in New York a couple hours later, she rushed upstairs to find that the common floor was completely empty. She traveled to the the briefing room, but no one was in there either. Finally, she succumbed to her confusion and asked JARVIS, “Where is everyone? What’s the emergency?” _What’s Protocol 79 if not an Avengers Assemble message?_

“Ms. Romanov, I did not realize you’d arrived,” the AI almost sounded surprised, reminding Natasha that she had forgotten that she had instinctively stayed out of camera lines. “You’re needed in Dr. Banner’s lab. I was unable to contact you through the Quinjet’s mainframe,” Natasha smiled guiltily, knowing that she automatically cut off all wireless communications when she had gotten in the plane. “But it seems quickest for you to see Dr. Banner’s state now,” he concluded. The was a pause as she rode upwards in the elevator, then he added, “He has a gun to his head, ma’am.”

For just a moment, her thoughts stopped, and the first tendrils of panic attempted to seize her, but the master spy forced it all down. She stepping out of the elevator to find a ring of two police officers and a three firefighters standing outside of the clear doors of the physicist’s lab. They all look to her for help, silence seeping out of their faces, to the inside of lab, which was locked shut with an intricate electromagnet, overriding any of JARVIS’s attempts to open it. She allowed the silence to stay, sliding forward to look through the clear doors. She could see Bruce staring at the aforementioned gun and she had no way to stop him. He’d clearly drugged himself recently, as Natasha could see a syringe clattered on the floor just below his feet. He wasn’t playing around, but then again, he never was.

“Hey, Bruce. It’s Natasha. I’m going to be going into the vents in a second to come hang out with you, okay?” the assassin announced, knowing that JARVIS was broadcasting her words to the physicist. She saw his chest start heaving faster and faster, breath faltering at the same time, unseen tears pooling in his eyes.

She imagined all of the small noises that Bruce was known for making when he had panic attacks.

 

_“He’ll keep trying to talk to you, but he usually isn’t able to get them all the way out. It’s scary for him, as far as I can tell, not being able to speak, reminds him of being the Other Guy.”_

 

Inside the lab, Bruce felt his throat closing up and started clawing at his skin, trying to stop all of his panic.

 

 _“Plus, panic attacks are basically like really bad dissociative episodes for him, and keep him like one step removed from turning into the Other Guy. He’ll keep trying to ground himself, but it won’t be in a safe way. Bruce might pick at his skin, pull his hair, hit his head against something. You shouldn’t exactly_ restrain _him, because that tends to make things worse, but taking his hands in yours and squeezing his hands or finger tips had helped in the past.”_

 

Eventually, he forced himself to nod. His brain wasn’t really functioning properly at that moment, as far as the Black Widow could tell, especially considering the drugs cluttering his system.

Natasha continued talking to him, trying to be as reassuring as she possibly could, but she wasn’t an expert at being the reliable friend. The best she had done in the past was talk Clint out of getting extremely drunk after a bad day in the office.

But Tony had sat everyone down after Steve had discovered that Bruce was depressed and suicidal nearly a month before. Now, Tony was off the grid, his Malibu house was in the ocean and basically everything had gone to shit.

Bruce had been left alone in Stark Tower and no one had thought of the implications of that, with his best friend having disappeared from the face of the earth.

Now, it was Natasha’s job to take care of it since Thor was off world Steve was on a separate mission that Natasha didn’t know the details of, but JARVIS obviously did and found it was more important, and Clint was stuck in S.H.I.E.L.D. Medical with a nasty concussion. The assassin was left knowing _what_ she was supposed to do, but without any tactical experience, knowing how to do it right and Natasha didn’t want to fake her way through this and to be a spy like she was normally supposed to be. Natasha wanted to be the doctor’s friend, even though she had no idea how to do _this_. She thought about Fury’s words to her over a year before as she made her way through the vent, never ceasing her reassurances to the doctor. “Any means necessary, you need to gain Dr. Banner’s trust. If we don’t have the man on our side, then we sure as hell won’t have the monster.” The words seemed innocent enough to the uneducated population, but within Natasha’s world, ‘Any means necessary’ usually meant that there would be seduction involved in some form. She felt conflicted about whether or not she was still supposed to follow the order still.

“You’re doing fine Bruce, I promise. I’m going to drop down now, into the lab, do you understand?” she asked, moving the vent cover off to the side. She waited until he nodded furiously, pulling at his hair, before dropping onto the ground, forcing her feet to make a noise when she hit the ground. She sidled up right next to to the doctor and could feel him shaking, unable to speak both due to the drug and his panic. The gun was still grasped in his hands, which were pulling at his hair.

 

 _"When he_ is _pulling his hair, it can be somewhat difficult to get him to you know,_ let go _without hurting himself more. You have to get on one side of him and tell him what you're about to do. Telegraph your movements and don't go from behind. Actually, side note: never approach him from behind, or like, me, from behind, or probably anyone, unless they can_ hear _you. It really messes with a guy when there’s suddenly someone behind him after like fifty hours or no sleep,” Tony gave a pointed look to Clint. “Anyway, once you have your hands on top of his, you need to slide you fingers under his and then pull them out of his hair. From there, you have two options, you can place his hands under his legs so he's sitting on them and then talk to him until he responds, or you can keep his hands in yours and squeeze them and talk until he responds. Both of which are just transitioning him trying to ground himself in a painful way to a safe one." Tony gave Bruce a readable look, and the genius gave him a sheepish smile, clearly understanding what the engineer meant. A small blush crept up on his cheeks. “If you have any questions,” Tony added in randomly, “Then just save them for the end. I have a list,” he held up an actual printed piece of paper, something that was unheard of in Stark Tower. “And I just was to go in that order, so you can put your hand down Clint, were talking about,” he looked down at his list, “Depression next. How exciting,” he deadpanned, Bruce squirming in his seat a little._

 

Natasha didn’t want to risk trying to stop Bruce’s trichotillomania when he had a gun in his hands, even if it hadn’t been pointed at himself for a while and Tony had said he was hurting himself. She didn’t want this to end with a visit from the Hulk.

So they sat there for a while, Natasha trying not to falter in her stream of empty assurances.

”I’m not going to do it,” the physicist finally interrupts, lolling his head towards her, kind of moving to gun to indicate what he was talking about.

”You going to give me the gun then?” she asked. Bruce shook his head. “I can’t. Other’s would get hurt, JARVIS was smart, bringing the cops.” Natasha understood that he was not answering her, likely wasn’t even processing what she’d said and was just talking aloud. It was also possible that he didn’t even know that it’s her, or that she’s still there.

 

_“It’s in JARVIS’s protocol to contact me when Brucie here,” said doctor shoved Tony almost playfully, but it was clear he was uncomfortable talking about slash listening to Tony talk about his mental illness. “Is at a fifty percent chance of trying to off himself within the next twenty four hours and sixty five percent for trying to hurt himself.” Tony closed his eyes for a moment, trying to pull himself together for his friend’s sake. “Steve can explain the percentage system later, anyway, or JARVIS can, whatever. I’ll try to remember to-”_

_“I want to-_ we _want to be contacted immediately whenever these… episodes happen, Stark,” Steve interrupted. A look passed between Tony and Bruce, the former squeezing the doctor’s knee as he stood up, exiting through the elevator. The other Avengers waited until he was out of line of sight before looking back at Tony. Hr breathed in deeply, trying to decide if he was supposed to follow or not, despite their unspoken conversation. Thankfully, he was interrupted by a text from the physicist himself. ‘Ur doing fine, I just dont want everyones pity eyes.’_

_“He’s fine,” Tony reported, holding up his phone just long enough for people to see that the message was from Bruce, but not long enough for them to read the message._

 

”I can have them leave,” she offers, looking over to the officials that were still hanging out, she forces a smile at them, and they relax a little bit, but Bruce still has the gun and so that can’t mean anything good in their eyes. Bruce nodded, “Please,” he added, but the spy still wasn’t completely sure he knew what he’s talking about. “You going to be okay while I go?” she asked, trying to indicate that she wanted the gun. “I won’t try anything,” he said, softly, still swimming in a cocktail of chemicals. Most of which she was certain _weren’t_ his normal meds.

 

 _"I guess we can talk about changing protocol 79 later,” he continued, shaking his head, having forgotten that he wasn’t the only one that cared deeply about Bruce. “Next on the list is medication, since that was the cause of last month's… debacle. He's_ on _meds, but we're- him, me and his psychiatrist- having trouble finding the right balance. Because we don't want to like… drug him, or make him overdose or anything, but also he has a really high metabolism and so he burns through basically everything within a few hours, and taking meds every few hours is kind of super annoying. Plus, the Other Guy wipes_ everything _out of his system whenever he shows up, which means we have to start over making it a pattern for him to take them every time he transforms back. So far, we've pretty much got his dopamine and serotonin levels in his brain stable, but since we know less about dissociation and panic disorders in general, they're harder to pin down with meds and psychotherapy takes forever," Tony rambled, being the only one who really knew what he was talking about. And Bruce, who was likely watching through security cameras,  if the constant texts Tony was getting while he spoke were any indication._

 

Natasha walked over to the door, after laying a single, soothing hand on his back, which he flinched at. She cursed herself. _Telegraph your movements._ With a flick of a switch, the lock Bruce had placed on the door disengaged. She slipped outside. “Ma’am?” one of the police officers asked. Natasha shut the door behind her and took a deep breath, “He’s not going to do anything,” she supplied. “He wouldn’t risk killing anyone else.”

“I don’t think I follow, miss,” the second, blonde, officer asked, craning her neck to keep an eye on Bruce. “Do you not recognize him?” Natasha asked, narrowing her eyes. A slew of No’s followed, and she continued, “That’s Dr. Bruce Banner.” She let a brief moment pass, before adding, “Also known as the Hulk…”

“Oh.” The various emergency responders developed defensive stances, but the spy assures them that there is no chance that he’s going to Hulk out, not if there were people nearby. “I promise that I’m going to get the gun from him, but he won’t lose his leverage just yet, I'm not sure why, that’s all in his brain, but I’m not going to let him try anything. Not tonight, not ever.” She knew that Bruce probably was having JARVIS play this in the lab, so she hoped to any god that may still be out there that she had said the right thing. She paused for a moment, “I know this is probably against your protocol, but he’s not going to give me the gun, he’s not going to leave the lab until everyone leaves.”

“But you said that he’s _not_ trying because were here,” the blonde officer reminded her, not taking her eyes away from the physicist, who seemed to be muttering something to himself. Natasha shook her head, “I’m here now. I know what I’m doing,” she lied, then repeated, “I’m not going to let him try anything.”

After a couple of shared looks, the officials agreed to leave the building, so Natasha slipped back into the lab as they all piled into the elevator. “They’re all gone, Bruce,” she assured the doctor. “JARVIS,” Bruce asked blearily, “They all gone?”

Because of course Bruce still remembered JARVIS, he’d lived with the AI enough to do that, for longer than he’d lived with Natasha. Of course he could interact with a fucking computer program, but not his coworker. Of course he can recognize the AI, but can’t seem to do the same with Natasha, which makes her feel like an awful person. The doctor thought he could depend more on literally a string of zeroes and ones more than he could his fellow Avenger. If anything, this was an indication that she wasn’t doing her job very well. If she couldn’t gain more trust than JARVIS, then Banner _ever_ trust her?

 

_“Speaking of psychotherapy,” Tony continued, “We have plan of care meetings like once a month, and as I’m sure Steve is already getting ready to ask, you’re all totally invited. That is, if Bruce is down with you all coming. Because he’s like the second most in charge of the meetings,  so he gets say in who comes. So far, it’s just me, him, his psychiatrist and his psychologist, which you have no idea how awkward that is.” He got a text, but didn’t stop talking as he responded. “The basic consensus at these meetings is that, spoiler alert, Brucie-bear has trust issues- reminder that me and Bruce already approved of everything that’s on the list and that’s on the list. Well, it’s on a separate list. You know what, the list system we have is very complicated, but basically we just reached the end of the first, concrete list.”_

 

“Yes, Dr. Banner. They have all entered their vehicles and are leaving the radius of the Tower,” JARVIS responded. There’s a pause in the room, then Bruce says, “I don’t think I can let go.”

“I’ve got you,” Natasha promised, “I’m going to put my hands on top of yours, okay?” He nodded, and she moved slowly, not wanting to startle him. She got the gun out of his hands first, sliding it halfway across the lab floor. Then, she pulled his hands out, glad that his panic had finally subsided and that they were on equal footing.

 

_When Tony finished his spiel from his paper, Natasha had remembered thinking how skimpy it was, how there were probably a million things that he and Bruce had talked about, but were uncomfortable sharing. Even if there was supposedly a second list, that wasn’t exactly reassuring. "So... any questions?" the engineer  asked, looking around, and then glancing at the camera where he knew Bruce was watching from._

_"What are his frequency of panic attacks?" Clint asked, clearly the question he’d wanted to ask earlier._

_"There's not a_ frequency _." Tony narrowed his eyes, but not in a necessarily threatening way. "It's not like… like he's building up over time until he_ breaks _and spirals into a panic attack or something."_

_"That's not what I-"_

_"I don't care." His jaw worked for a moment, "To answer your question: he's more likely to have a dissociation episode than to have a panic attack. Like, for every one panic attack he probably has three or four dissociative episodes. It kinda just depends on the situations, because they're both responses to pretty much the same stimuli. Like, say I accidentally blow something up, if I have time to warn him or he sees it coming, then he's more like to dissociate, because then there's no one in control of the body, rather than if he were completely caught off guard and then him and the Other Guy were both fighting for control, which would lead to a panic attack. I'd say he has a dissociative episode like once a week, but they're usually not that noticeable, and I only find out they happen because JARVIS tells me. If they get really bad or aren't caught early enough, then it could spiral into a panic attack, but those are usually caused by nightmares or when he's actually under attack. But he's not fighting it all on his own, obviously. He has the meds that we talked about, which work to prevent all of that."_

 

Natasha imagined the adrenaline slowly draining from his system, leaving just the drugs. He made eye contact with her, something rare unto itself, especially in this kind of situation. “You should’ve taken me to a safe room,” he mocked her.  

 

_“What are the safe rooms for?” Steve asked, “Are they there for when he transforms or for panic attacks or something? I’ve seen Dr. Ba- Bruce in them before without seeming to be in distress. I asked JARVIS, but he said that you knew so it was fine…”_

_“Oh, yeah. Bruce has a tendency to just go into them. He likes to isolate himself, first off, but secondly, he likes them because they have like_ really _good sound proofing, so he sometimes meditates in there. We agreed that JARVIS tells me every time he goes in, but sometimes he doesn’t actually need anything. It’s not like Bruce is constantly in_ peril _or something.”_

 _Tony got a text and paused, actually staying silent as he responded to Bruce. He closed his eyes for a moment, before continuing, “The safe rooms are open to anyone,” he looked at the camera, “_ Apparently, _we decided on that. I am going to make the executive decision that the one on Bruce’s floor_ isn’t _for sale.” He looked back at the rest of the team, “But yeah, I try to keep Bruce away from the safe rooms so he doesn’t form a habit of like, living in them or something, but everyone needs alone time,” he shrugged._

 

Around four hours later, which were shrouded in near silence, Natasha convinced Bruce to go to bed. She supported him as they walked, even though most of the drug had been dissolved by his system at that point. They rode the elevator up to his room, but he broke free of her grasp when she started guiding him towards his bedroom and locked himself in his safe room, passing out almost immediately.

“JARVIS?” Natasha asked, sitting down outside the room, “You gonna unlock that for me?”

“Apologies, Ms. Romanov, but it’s a part of Protocol 79 for Dr. Banner to be alone in the safe rooms in the right circumstances. He’s asleep, so it is unlikely that he will try to harm himself,” the AI responded. Natasha frowned, “What _is_ Protocol 79?” she asked. “I can have another copy sent to your phone,” he offered. She nodded, but questioned, “Another?”

“Mr. Stark had a copy sent to each member of the Avengers Initiative and select others after he and Captain Rogers negotiated the new regulations. You were in Prague a couple weeks ago. It would still be in your apartment. Mr. Stark was persistent that we used paper, he was afraid of being hacked,” he explained. She set aside the idea that JARVIS knew where all her missions were, and opened up the newest download onto her phone.

“Protocol 79 has lots of subsections,” she muttered to herself as she read through the contract that she had heard so much about. “So you’re the one that pulled me from my mission,” she commented, only a bit upset. The AI sounded apologetic as he replied, “Yes, you were the best candidate to help Dr. Banner today.”

 

 

“What are you- How did you- What?” He sputtered when his eyes landed on the assassin. “Good morning to you too. Or afternoon, but whatever. How are you?” she asks, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m,” he looks around groggily, “When did you get here? How did you get into _here_?” he shakes his head, “It only opens bio-metrically,” he mutters to himself. “Oh, I picked the lock to the side room over there and made my way in,” she shrugged. It wasn’t hard.”

“Please don’t tell Tony that. He’ll try to braid the Other Guy’s hair or something. JARVIS, can you just delete that recording?” he asked, still more comfortable with the AI than Natasha.

She smiled, “I won’t. You hungry? Wait, no first I’m-”

“Water, food, meds- I know the drill.” He puts his head in his hands, “Just give me a minute, my brain hurts.”JARVIS began lowering the lights in the room to accommodate the doctor. “Thanks, J,” he murmured, before standing up and letting himself into the side room connected to his safe room. The assassin follows him in as he starts rummaging through the cabinets in the room, clearly having done this before. “I can’t get ahold of anyone,” she admitted, sitting down on his bed. “Except Clint, but I already knew where he was. He’s going to be cleared by the end of the day. But right now he’s working on finding out where Tony is.” Bruce froze at those words. “I know that’s why everything went to shit,” she supplied, “And I swear were working on it, but you know were all going to be have a conversation about this,” she gave him a fake smile. He nodded, and closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said.

By the time Tony had been found and was out of surgery, and Bruce had gotten to Malibu, he was so relieved he finally felt ‘okay’ enough, _safe_ enough to sleep and not just pass out from exhaustion.

Natasha was glad that she was able to help that night, but hoped to God that she’d have to chance to gain even a fraction of the trust that Tony had wheedled out of Bruce.

 

_ “Everyone needs to feel safe, I’m just glad Bruce found that here,” he added, running a hand through his hair. He let his words settle into the group, before asking, “Any more questions?” _

_ There were several head shakes, no one wanting to break the silence of their realization. The implication that Bruce hadn’t felt safe before living in the tower. Finally, Natasha closed her eyes and asked the question that everyone was thinking. “How do we help?” _

How do we help him feel safe? How do we help him feel loved? How do we help him feel wanted?

How do we gain his trust?

_ “Be… people?” Tony offered, knowing what they wanted, but not how to instruct them to follow his path. “Don’t be fake or… threatening, overly defensive… cruel. There’s a lot of stuff that will never be on this list,” he help it up, “for you guys. But to get that access, it’s not up to you, it’s not up to me. It’s up to Bruce.” He made eye contact with each person in the room, before settling on looking at the security camera. “And he has  _ very  _ thick skull, so you’ll have to be pretty clear slash obvious with him.” He looked back at the people in the room.  _

_ “Thank you,” he finished.  _


End file.
